Jazz Jackrabbit 2 Online

Welcome to Planet Esion!

Included in the ZIP is a tileset and a sample level for the tileset in question. Interesting note: This tileset REQUIRES Jazz Jackrabbit 2+ to use. It will not work in the original game! It’s a 32-bit tileset. It ALSO requires the as-of-writing-recently-released most recent update, 6.0, or any versions after that which some day presumably will exist and presumably will also support 32-bit tilesets.

To establish the nature of this set so you don’t get the wrong idea about its purpose, it’s intentionally built to be colorful to the point of being actively a bit obnoxious, for the sake of trying my best to ensure it’s impossible to properly make work in 256 colors. From there, it also then uses alpha transparency for smooth edges on a lot of tiles, just to be extra sure.

So… why? Why make this?

Admittedly, this mostly exists because I saw that Jazz Jackrabbit 2+ can do 32-bit tilesets now, and got excited that I can actually probably finally make tilesets with a process I find considerably more manageable than the old one. I wanted to have some fun and make something that probably wasn’t possible before to celebrate the occasion.

And you know what, 32-bit tilesets are uncharted territory. Kind of a bit hard to say for sure what makes for a “good” 32-bit tileset yet, so may as well throw ideas out there for now until people have a better handle on what to do and what not to do with this newfound power.

To that end, some caveats to be aware of before you consider using this set:

I can’t imagine that this set is actually particularly pleasant to work with for larger levels, both for reasons to do with the aesthetic direction of it being a bit hard to work with, and due to the unusual layout.

The layout is owed to the fact that many of the tiles are intended to be repeated in a 2×2 pattern, but where the corners and edges are supposed to continue in the correct portion of that 2×2 pattern. End result, many tiles show up what appears to be 4 times at first glance. Mirroring and flipping can be used for roughly the same purpose for the center tiles if you find that easier, though it may not help as much for the corners.

Also, the set kind of uses a lot of colors that don’t necessarily blend well, and also uses two different art styles instead of one, with one intended more-so for more decorative aspects and the other intended more-so for main geometry. Though, as seen in the sample level, some of the main geometry can also be formed out of tiles that use the artstyle of the more decorative assets, which means it might be a bit hard to keep track of, at first glance, what tiles are best for what.

Suffice to say though, no promises about the usability of this tileset in practice. Apparently it got the job done enough that I was able to make a sample level at all, so that’s something at least. Still, if anybody decides to use this set for one reason or another, best of luck!

Tileset compiled with MLLE. I used the cloud generator in paint.net a fair bit, GraphicsGale to actually get a palette into this thing... oh, and I used the template from the JCS manual to get said palette to begin with. Actual tileset made by me. Song is another chance by cs127, used under CC BY 4.0 license. Original song can be found here: https://modarchive.org/index.php?request=view_by_moduleid&query=206772